


The Last Dragons

by bigcitydreamer98



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Episode 802, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 00:22:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18560140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigcitydreamer98/pseuds/bigcitydreamer98
Summary: A little one-shot about what Daenerys might've been thinking after Jon revealed that he is Aegon Targaryen. In the span of a few seconds, Daenerys' whole world shatters because of Jon and yet, she can't stop herself from wanting him to hold her close and tell her that everything is going to be alright.





	The Last Dragons

She couldn’t breathe. It felt like all the air had been sucked out of her, stolen from her lungs. She could feel her muscles tighten and her mind start to go numb. Lightheaded. Like a feather. Floating above her own body. She tried to concentrate on his eyes, on the way his coat would lift slightly as he took a breath, the way he stepped towards her. She wanted to push him away, to make him see what a fool he was being. What perfect timing – his best friend and his brother. 

She saw the way Sam eyes her from across the room, the way his lip curls as if he is preparing to say something to her. An anger that cannot be quelled, a sadness that she didn’t mean to inflict. Maybe she should’ve kept them prisoner. Maybe burning the Tarly’s wasn’t the answer. But, she gave them a choice, a decision, more than Cersei would ever do. It still isn’t worth the way Sam looks at her. She just wants to disappear. 

She hates the cold, she really does, but she would never tell Jon this. She just layers the coats and uses her braids as a blanket, protecting her from the frigid air. She misses the warmth, the way the sun would hit her skin, her breakfast full of plump fruits. She remembers the way her people would smile at her and thank her. To be loved again, to be respected, is something she misses the most.

Daenerys doesn’t belong in the North. They look at her like she is going to crack at any minute. Another mad Targaryen, they would say. To be expected. Why should a daughter be judged for her father’s crimes, especially given that she had never even met her father?

She came to Winterfell to help them, to provide her armies, her people, her friends at their service. Her dragons for goodness sake. Don’t they understand that she could’ve headed straight to King’s Landing or even back to Slaver’s Bay. Daenerys’ didn’t need to be here. Her Unsullied didn’t have to suffer in tents outside in the freezing cold, their armor not made for these temperatures, her Dothraki shivering by the fireplace, their horses with little to eat. 

She didn’t even expect the Northerners to call her their queen at first. A ‘thank you’ would have sufficed. 

Daenerys doesn’t belong in the North, but she belongs with Jon. As the news slipped from his lips, she wanted so much to hold him close, for him to wrap his arm around her and tell her everything was going to be alright, but instead, she pulled away. 

It can’t be true. It’s not. Bran and Samwell made up this lie to destroy her, to tear out every last ounce of strength she had. It was hard enough making a brave face to all the Northern scowls, the sneers, the furrowed brows. It was revenge, it must be.

At this point, she’s not sure if she really heard Jon say, “It’s true, Dany,” his voice soft, pleading almost. 

She was underwater, the air escaping from her lungs, her hearing muddied and her sight blurry. The Iron Throne, everything she had worked for for so many years, gone in an instant. She wondered if it would have hurt less if it came from one of her enemies, at least she would’ve expected it, but no, it was Jon. Jon, the love of her life, taking everything she held dear in one quick swoop.

It would rightfully be his. The son of Rhaegar. 

A boy, because no matter what she did, they always had the power. Men always looked at her like a prize to be won, seeing her as nothing more than a pretty face. A King always before a Queen. A man always before a woman.

All that talk with Sansa about being women in power would fade quickly just because she wasn’t a man. She was brought back to her time with the Khals, as they spoke of the atrocities they would do to her without any semblance of remorse, the way they spoke about her like some animal. She remembered her first night with Drogo, as she wept in silence. If she screamed, she was sure that no one would hear her, that no one would care.

Some days she wished she could cut off her braids, throw away her beautiful dresses, wipe away the pink tint off her lips. How much simpler life would’ve been if she was a boy. No one would doubt her. Viserys wouldn’t have sold her like some prized mare. Drogo wouldn’t have raped her. 

But, she loved to braid her silvery locks. She enjoyed the way they fell around her shoulders. She loved the feel of her dresses and the way they made her feel beautiful, powerful, important. She cherished her milky skin, the way it was soft to the touch. Daenerys didn’t want to be a man, no, but if she could erase the power dynamics of gender from the seven kingdoms, she would do it in a heartbeat. 

Viserys used to tell her about life in King’s Landing when their father was in power. When they were living together, everywhere and nowhere, he would tell her about how his bed in the castle used to feel like a cloud. “Dany, you wouldn’t believe it. You would sink in and fall asleep as soon as your head hit the pillow. Magic.” 

As she would sleep on the streets when Viserys couldn’t come up with enough money for a bed for the night, she would dream of the cloud bed. The sack of grains would no longer leave her with a day-long headache. The cloud bed. That would be hers one day.

“Rhaegar would sing down the hallways and race me down the streets. He would’ve loved you, Dear Sister. Three dragons, as it should be.” As Daenerys would watch as fathers would hold daughters by the hand, as mothers would buy ripe oranges for her children, she would wish Rhaegar would wipe her tears as she had to leave house after house. She wanted to race with her brothers, wanted to sing without a care in the world. She made up her own songs, mostly from the stories Viserys would tell her. Endless drinks of a thousand flavors. Dragon heads that we would play hide-and-seek in. Little cakes when we finished our lessons. 

She had stopped calling the places she lived in ‘home’, because each time they had to leave, her heart broke a little more, but she soon learned that calling them houses instead of homes didn’t do much in making it hurt less. 

When Viserys was gone, home became the Iron Throne. She would have the cloud bed. Even if her family wasn’t with her, she would make them proud. Even though she would be the last dragon, she would do right by her House, by her family. The last dragon. The last of her kind. 

This is everything she had fought for all these years, for her family. For the blood of the dragon. And now, it was all going to be taken from her, just because of some archaic system of power. She was the one who commanded the Dothraki’s respect. She’s the one who freed the Unsullied and gave them free will. She’s the one who rose from the ashes. She couldn’t give this up so easily. She couldn’t return to that scared little girl who allowed her brother to sell her, who cried as her husband raped her, and couldn’t do anything as everyone controlled her. The Iron Throne was hers, was everything she had ever wanted. She was so used to protecting herself, her power, her identity that she uttered: “You would have a claim to the Iron Throne.” She didn’t mean for it to be malicious, but she wasn’t ready to give it all up.

Would this mean that everything would be taken from her in a snap? If her armies were taken from her, her advisors, her control, she felt like she would crumble. Who was she apart from everyone she surrounded herself with. Would she just be the same girl incapable of holding her own? 

She wished Sansa and Jon would’ve seen her where she had begun, the way her skin was always hot to the touch, covered with dirt, with her ivory skin raw from the sand. She wished they would be able to see the way she would tentatively take a bite of her food, worried that it was poisoned, the way she was afraid to go outside by herself out of fear of the nasty things that would happen to a Targaryen girl. Jon grew up a bastard, yes, but he also grew up in a home. He had siblings who loved him, a father (well, uncle) who saw his worth. No moving houses. No siblings that would sell him to the right bidder, no fear that he would get killed at any second. She was hardened by her life. As she aged, her walls grew. 

If they saw her at the beginning of her journey, maybe then they would understand why the throne was important to her, why she might seem guarded, why she always watched as they would casually lay down their lives for each other. Sansa and Theon hugged with such intensity that she was speechless. 

It wasn’t because Sansa and Theon were just allies. It wasn’t because they wanted something from one another. It was family. Family. The word seemed so foreign to her and yet, that was everything she wanted. Jon would never sell Arya to a barbarian. He wouldn’t threaten to cut Sansa’s belly open. The only family she knew was cruel. She didn’t know how to do this. She didn’t know how to love, and yet, she knew that she loved him. 

She used to dream of Rhaegar, of, as Viserys would put it, ‘a smile that would melt a thousand hearts.’ Daenerys dreamed that Rhaegar would play catch with her when Viserys was busy plotting his big plans, that Rhaegar would play with her when no other child would, especially due to Viserys’ constant warnings: “Dany, it’s not safe for you. You’re a Targaryen. Blood of the Dragon. The Usurper has murderers everywhere. We aren’t safe.” Rhaegar would’ve played with her. 

When she learned that Rhaegar raped Lyanna Stark, her dreams ceased. How could someone who used to sing in the streets and donate money to hungry children be so cruel. Was it in her blood? Was it inevitable. 

“He didn’t. He loved her,” Jon had said only milliseconds ago. Maybe madness didn’t run in the family. Maybe she wouldn’t turn mad eventually. For all the times people had told her that she wasn’t her father, she could’ve never been sure until now. Rhaegar was good. Kind and charming and good. No madness in him, maybe no madness in her.

Her heart hurt from the way Jon was looking at her, like he was ready to pick her up if she ended up bursting into a million pieces - something that was entirely still possible. At least she knew now why he was ignoring her. She worried that she did something wrong. She hadn’t loved like this since Drogo and Drogo was different. He was rough and he was cruel. He promised her the world, and yet, never sailed across the seas. He was a dreamer. Jon, on the other hand, was silly. He often reminded her of her dragons when they were little, how they would look at her with their big eyes. She didn’t want to ruin this, do something that would make him leave her.

The way he ignored her all day made the winter feel even more cold, chilling her skin. She loved him, she did. She didn’t like saying it out loud, for everyone she ever loved had either turned their back to her or passed on. The way his eyes searched hers for some sort of reaction brought her back down, made her heart continue beating despite the shock that rattled every notion of self she had. Even if he did become king, he wasn’t like Viserys. He loved her and she loved him. He wasn’t going to let her get stripped to nothing, as she had once been before. He wouldn’t let her fend for herself on the streets or have to feel the bones of her ribs as she waited for her next meal. Even if he took the throne, he would make sure she was safe. He was her love. He was her family.

Family. That’s all she ever wanted. She didn’t like to admit this to anyone, but she didn’t always want to make every decision. She didn’t want to fear that everyone around her would turn on her. Every person under her role depended on her. Was she fit for it? Stability is something only a family like the Starks possess. An unquestionable loyalty. A constant that Daenerys never seemed to have. She was not the last Targaryen. The legacy of her house no longer fell squarely on her. They would be in it together. Still she worried that if it came down to her or one of the Starks, Jon’s choice would be clear. A Targaryen, yes, but with Stark blood. Always more a Stark than Targaryen, and yet, he said that his real name is Aegon Targaryen. He took ownership of his new name, of his new identity. 

With Jon, she didn’t have to be a lone dragon. He could support her decisions. How could she be mad at him. It wasn’t like he ever went looking for this information. It wasn’t like he was throwing it in her face. No, he let her hold him close. He spoke with such kindness, with such love, that she knew that he didn’t want to hurt her. It didn’t jolt her that she was in love with her nephew. Looking back, it makes sense. Dragons find other dragons. Much better than marrying Viserys.

She watched the way he watched her, searching for something anything. There was no malice in his voice, no desire to take over her armies. He was just a silly boy, the same man who talked about his family with the utmost pride, the man who her dragons accepted as one of their own. She missed the way his hands would grasp her own as she rested her head on his shoulder only seconds ago. She loved him. 

She loved the way she would make she smile. She missed smiling. She loved the way he was a leader, honorary and strong. He fought for his people with the courage of a thousand men and yet, when they were alone, he would make comments like “We’d be really old.” Just a boy. 

If he asked her, she might’ve decided to run away with him, maybe even in the North if he was persistent enough, even though she did not thrive in the cold. At all. Maybe somewhere where the color of her hair didn’t matter, where they could be with her dragons without worrying about how many sheep they would eat, how every decision she made seemed to be wrong, how she always felt like she was doing something wrong.

“I hope I’m worthy,” she had told him before they became more than allies. She had stopped publicly doubting herself. It’s weak. She can’t be weak. Jorah knew about her worries, but he believed in her wholeheartedly. He would tell her not to worry. She was worthy. With Jon, she knew that he would be honest with her. She didn’t have to worry about him telling her just what she wanted to hear. Jon was her confidant, more than anyone in her life. 

A Targaryen. Another one. Two sides of the same coin. Two Targaryens, now together. It made sense, it really did. With Jon, she could be completely and utterly herself. She could be vulnerable with him, but he also wasn’t scared of the dragon within, a fire in her that never quelled. The ability to do extraordinary things, while reining in the ability to enact horrors. When she was with him, she didn’t have to be a leader. She didn’t have to be the Last Targaryen, now she really didn’t have to be the last one. She could just be herself. 

She couldn’t tell him she loved him. Her mind had settled, but she was hardly able to spit out everything she had wanted to say. All her thoughts stayed compounded in her mind, aching to come out, but it was not the time. The horn signaled the start. She knew that it was probably the beginning of the end, even though she still wished it was the start of their new beginning. Two Targaryens. She couldn’t believe it. She wanted to kiss him and run from him all at the same time, but now, she didn’t have a chance to pick. Instead, they ran together, down the stairs to the dragons. They would fly together. Two dragons, the last dragons.

**Author's Note:**

> Just some of my own musings about what is going on in Dany's head, mainly for me to try to understand where she is coming from. Hope you like it! I'd love to hear your thoughts.


End file.
